I write this in exhaustion, in anger, and in disenchantment with the larger state of the world. Even with the peace that I hold in my heart and in my spirit, nothing is quite as unsettling or infuriating as watching the world insidiously burn at the hands of people who are aware of the evil and trauma they’ve inflicted yet cherrypick the instances where they’ve done a minuscule amount of good as reconciliation. Good in the name of who exactly? This is the question that I find fails to be answered in its entirety.
One apology or firing or hashtag does not undo generations of racism, trauma, and systematic dehumanization. They do not count as reparations. Black people have long been aware of this. As I see it, more and more non-Black people are gaining a similar awareness. What we see today, last week or last month is no different than what has been seen, discussed, prayed over, written about, and protested for decades upon decades. What I write today I say with the utmost sincerity and with a desire for people to understand we
must
abolish the toxic systems and bureaucratic positions that aim to destroy us but, we cannot successfully do this unless we are willing to listen, unlearn, and act even in the face of fear. And when I say, “we,” I earnestly put more emphasis on white Americans and non-Black people of color contributing to this effort.
We collectively spend entirely too much time feeding a system that feeds only a minute portion of us. A system that feeds a wealthy, white minority. The harvest of this system is not even of the spirit or gut-filling type. Those who are fed by it consistently ask more of it because they are never sated and they’re fully aware they can bend and mold it until a powerful belch erupts from their hollow bodies as they sit upon death’s door. They pass the same power-hungry mentality to their offspring who go off to spew the same racist, bigoted rhetoric and act per the teaching of their self-righteous, arrogant ancestors.
This is nothing new nor is it not my job, as a Black woman, to tell you this but, as history would illustrate, Black folks constantly do the jobs of serving white folks to make their life easier. In an effort to soothe their woes and comfort their egos even at the risk of further hurting ourselves and our families. We give them an inch in the hope they’ll go the extra mile to see where they’re going wrong. White Americans never feel a real sense of urgency to aid Black Americans because
they have never had to
. America’s race issue has existed from the moment Africans were crowded onto sickening ships and carried across the Atlantic. Everything in America is about race not because we
want
it to be but because race is the
very foundation
of America. Supposed racial inferiority has been the justification for virtually every tyrannical action that has occurred upon this soil. Even when Black folks are slain to the ground, knee on our necks, and guns pressed in our spines, it is not our humanity that is seen but our Blackness.
No person on this planet should
ever
endure the kind of dehumanizing existence that Black Americans do day in and day out. Although the Black community has our own colorful gambit of issues to rectify internally, many of these problems could find solutions if combatting whiteness and white supremacy did not take up our bandwidth from the moment we open our eyes to the moment we close them and pray our dreams don’t mirror the nightmares we navigate on the daily.
We live in a country that has become immensely desensitized to instances of injustice and brutality. If the COVID-19 pandemic has illustrated anything, it is that white Americans frequently mistake inconvenience with injustice and easily conflate helping others with losing their rights. Individuals in the white community are not accustomed to being viewed as a collective; they’ve constructed a society in which their individual actions exist independently of their collective (negative) consequences. They are not marked as monoliths for their race and, as such, have very limited experiences caring for others who don’t look like them or don’t rotate the same privileged spheres as them— and for any white person reading this right now who feels this is an attack on their character, I hope you realize that
you
are as much a contributor to the race problem in America as anyone else. We don’t get anywhere when you choose to neglect the impact of race in America. We don’t get anywhere when you claim you “don’t see color.” You
need
to see color. You
need
to see me and the folks who look like me and share my heritage and face a similar perpetual struggle in this country. As a white person, you can exploit the bliss that comes with ignorance and if that doesn’t make you sick to your stomach, then
you
are the problem.
White and non-Black folks should not be surprised by the anger expressed by Black people. Apologies are not absolutions for anti-Black behavior or police brutality or mass incarceration or institutional racial discrimination. To say “not all white people do x,” does not make up for the thousands of whites who do. Steering these conversations away from the guiltiness of white people is counterproductive. There are far too many white people in the country who choose to hide under their self-proclaimed virtue and righteousness than accept when they and their white peers are hurting others. Regardless of your other intersecting identities, your salient whiteness is harmful. Both your explicit and implicit racist behavior is harmful. Hold yourself accountable for your wrongdoings. Hold your family, friends, and colleagues accountable for their predatory and racist actions.
And do so without the expectation that you will get a pat on the back for doing the right thing.
You don’t deserve praise for calling out racism. You don’t deserve applause for saying oppression is evil. Your newfound “wokeness” doesn’t bring back the Black folks that people are still grieving over (I won’t list their names because there are far too many who all deserve far better than what they got). If you want to be a good ally, please go read a book, listen to the communities who are targeted the most, and put your money where your mouth is.
Even more so, everyone must realize that none of us- Black, white, or anything in between- benefit from living in a world like this. We live in fear of one another and refuse to talk to one another. We have become so conditioned to attack instead of to love each other. The extension of justice and human rights to
every
person is not a radical notion. We’re going to collapse under the weight of our destructive behavior if we continue to ignore times when we’re in the wrong and fail to work together to find an equitable course of action. Individualism does not birth liberation.
Everyone can (and should desire to) play a role in dismantling the systems and rectifying the policies that pit us against each and impose unnecessary hierarchies upon us. We don’t need everyone to be an organizer but we do need everyone to put forth an effort. We all have a skillset or a passion that can be utilized for the greater good. Leading from behind is just as necessary as standing at the front of the picket line. We are responsible for the state of our reality and we, collectively, know that what’s happening right now does not lead us to a better tomorrow. There is no one way to solve these problems but we can’t keep recycling old solutions and ways of thinking that have a clear track record of failure. We need to do good in the name of those who are perpetually marginalized and, to do so, requires us to sacrifice some privilege and spread some love.
